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This, Sarah felt, was getting ridiculous.

“Jareth,” she began, squinting through the darkness to try to see him better.

“Mm?” was Jareth’s noncommittal answer. He was clearly more interested in her body than her words.

“Why does it have to be so dark?” Sarah asked patiently.

“Mm...don’t you like it?” he purred. “I feel that it adds suspense.” He did something—she wasn’t sure what—that made her squeak suddenly in protest.

He chuckled darkly.

“But I can’t see anything!” she complained.

“Oh, trust me, love, I can see well enough for both of us.”

“Owl!”

“Mortal.”

Sarah huffed in frustration and leaned over to pull back the heavy curtains surrounding his bed, but felt him capture her hand and pull it away. “Jareth!” she protested. “This isn’t funny!”

“Why, just think of us as Cupid and Psyche,” he suggested. “You’ve always wanted to love a god, haven’t you?” She could hear his smile, damn him.

“Or,” she suggested, far too sweetly, “I could be Bella, and you could be Edward. He was afraid of the light too, you know.”

There was a long, slightly uncomfortable pause. Sarah made the mistake of attempting to fill it. “He was handsome, you know. And immortal.” Her voice, meant to sound light-hearted and sincere, was slightly breathless. She could feel his glare, even without any light.

“Really.” His voice was short, clipped—the way it became only when he was really, truly insulted. “Then why don’t you go find him? I do believe that he is also, like me, fictional.”

Between one blink and the next, Sarah found herself dropped onto her own bed, blinking painfully in the too-strong light. After a moment, she noticed that he hadn’t felt like returning her with her clothes.

Again.

* * *

Jareth stormed about his castle in a dreadful mood, causing all of the hapless—but not entirely stupid—goblins to take flight. How DARE she compare me to that atrocious excuse for a vampire! he snarled to himself.

He would show her. He didn’t need her; he could find plenty of mortal women to dally with. She had not been his first, nor would she be his last.

He simply had to find the right woman, and he was sure he had the perfect method.

* * *

A young girl, who had once read a strange little book she’d found in her school’s library, squealed when she saw the notice and promptly read it aloud to her friends. Their teachers didn’t believe them when they tried to explain what had happened and sent them all home with stern letters.

Strangely enough, many of those girls soon vanished too.

* * *

A college professor saw the advertisement and used it in his class as an example of rhetoric. One of his students obligingly offered to read it aloud, and, satisfied, the professor turned back to the blackboard to write down the important points of his lecture.

When he turned back around, the student was gone, with only an excessive amount of glitter to mark where the student had been. This caused quite a disturbance in the university.

* * *

“Hey, Kelly, did you see this ad?”

“Mm?” the addressed Kelly responded.

“Yeah, it’s a trip!” her friend went on. “Listen to this—Handsome, charismatic male seeks partner. Must have spirit and wit. Imagination and tolerance with minions v. helpful. NO TWILIGHT FANS. Reply with ‘I wish the goblins would come and take me away right now.’”

Kelly waited in the bathroom, hands tied up in styling her hair, for her friend to go on. She thought she heard some giggling, but it sounded strange. “Liz?” she called. “Yeah, it sounds weird, but what about it?”

After waiting impatiently for several moments, Kelly kicked the door open to look into their shared room. Since Liz’s bed was empty, Kelly assumed that she’d just snuck out the door for something.

But how had she been so quiet—and so quick?

* * *

Sarah also saw the ad in the Times, and laughed very hard for a very long time. She suspected that Jareth hadn’t fully thought his revenge tactic through.

She also suspected, and quite rightly, that he would regret it very, very quickly.

* * *

Jareth, meanwhile, was attempting to control the disaster that his realm had become and cursing his seemingly brilliant way to find a new lover. It was something that worked for mortals all the time; why hadn’t it worked for him? He now suspected, from some of the responses he had gotten, that such ‘personal ads’ often weren’t taken very seriously.

A large percentage of his castle was now taken over by his unfortunate new subjects, most of them wailing to be returned, even after he’d explained that the Labyrinth didn’t work like that. A number of rather sad looking women had stared at him with far too hopeful an expression, however, and he had quickly backed out.

Yet more of the wished-aways were making a wreck of his Labyrinth, and apparently were quite happy about their new situation. He began avoiding them after several of them tried—very crudely—to seduce him.

Jareth swore to himself to find all copies of the paper and of his book and burn them to cinders...though that would have to wait. That infernal girl was using her “certain powers” to summon him.

Sarah had the arrogance to be reclining on the sofa in her apartment—in the apartment that he had helped her get!—and looking perfectly relaxed when he appeared.

“How have you been?” she asked solicitously. “I saw your little ad in the paper.” She was, he noticed, holding a small rectangle of slightly grayish paper.

Sensing that he wasn’t going to answer her first question, Sarah tried another. “How is the Labyrinth? Has anything interesting happened since the last time I was there?”

The little rectangle burst into flames.

Sarah flung it into an ash tray sitting on her coffee table and sat up, sighing. “You can’t get rid of the people who read it, can you? They wished themselves away, so there’s no one to run for them.”

“I despise you,” Jareth growled.

Sarah rolled her eyes and chuckled. “No you don’t,” she contradicted him. “You hate them. You love me—because I’ll make the run for them.”

She watched his expression change with amusement before adding, “First, though, you’re going to get rid of those stupid ads, and then I’m going tell you on what conditions I’ll make the run.”

Jareth looked affronted and was about to lambast her for her presumption when she suddenly turned to go into her bedroom. “Don’t you dare walk away from me, woman!” he snapped.

“I’m changing!” she shot back. “Surely you didn’t expect me to run the Labyrinth in my favorite dress, did you?”

Jareth sulked, but wisely decided to work on preventing further imbeciles from seeing his ad and wishing themselves away.

A few moments later, Sarah returned, now wearing jeans, tennis shoes, and an old t-shirt. She was tying her hair up as she began listing her conditions.

“Sixteen hours—to make up for the three you stole from me last time—help from Hoggle, Sir Didymus, and Ludo; no more oubliettes or that damned groping shaft of hands or drugged fruit; no making me forget my mission; and a map.”

Jareth gave her a long look. “There aren’t any maps of the Labyrinth,” he deadpanned.

Sarah rolled her eyes. “Then make one. It can be like the Marauders’ Map and change to reflect the Labyrinth’s changes; I don’t care. But I want to know what’s ahead of me.”

“You do realize that if I gave you a map, it would defeat the entire purpose of running the Labyrinth, don’t you?” he drawled.

Sarah ignored him. “And when I win, I get a free wish—no restrictions, no penalties, no fine print.”

“When you win?” Jareth asked sarcastically.

Sarah glared up at him. “You do realize that if I lose, you’re stuck with the wished-aways forever, don’t you?” she mimicked.

Jareth responded by dumping her into the middle of a mob of crazed fangirls rampaging through his Labyrinth. Her three friends were hiding on the other side of a hedge, wondering where the scroll with the strange markings had come from.

* * *

Several hours passed, some with less patience than others. At last, though—and well before the time limit—Sarah found herself at the center of the Goblin King’s castle, facing him once again.

“Through dangers untold and hardships unnumbered, I have fought my way there to the castle beyond the Goblin City...for my will is as strong as yours, and my kingdom as great—”

Jareth interrupted her. “Can we please skip that speech? I never liked it in the first place.”

Sarah laughed. “You have no—” she began teasingly.

Jareth snarled at her. “You’ve already won—there’s no need for that.”

Sarah just shrugged. “So can I have my wish now?” she asked innocently, with a smile that Jareth suddenly recognized as the one that meant he was in deep shit.

"I wish that, for the next month, you will always and only respond to the name Edward Cullen."

Again.